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Disillusioned Posters?

Mar 09 2010

Disillusioned Posters?

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Time for a Change

Mar 04 2010

Some would conclude that we should at least go back to walking to the shops! The reason we don’t? Time. And yet, if we really do value that most precious resource, why is so much of it “spent” rather than “invested”. Those who have seen me speak on this, and long-time readers of my Business Dynamite newsletter, will immediately see what I am getting at here.

The reality is that whilst many people don’t think they have the Time to make the Changes they need to make in their life, they do.

Those who undertook the Olympic Challenge during the last month have learned that although it is tough to fit in six new habits in the available time in an already busy schedule, once you prioritise and focus, it is more than possible. In fact, never did “lack of time” become an issue for the participants; it was other barriers that had to be overcome. Once the decision had been made to make changes, and it was easy to fit into the schedule. It’s a question of making that decision to change.

In every case a breakthrough was achieved, and many reported their best ever month in terms of balance, focus, pro-active business development, and business results.

Some have even said they are going to continue for another month with a new set of habits to develop. In all cases, the true victory was in the day-to-day highlights generated with both small successes and large breakthroughs being shared.

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If you are behind...

Feb 26 2010

If you are behind…

Someone recently said that although they felt they were having a good-ish start to the year, they hadn’t really laid the foundations for changing/ improving their business. They felt that they would still really be in the same position in 3, 6, 12 months time (albeit a little better off for having had a good year). They said they felt as if they hadn’t really laid the solid foundations. They wanted a bit of advice on how to quickly get themselves sorted out.

So, if like them you feel that you haven’t really got on top of it:

A. Don’t cry about it.
B. Set aside time to do something about it… set aside a day, two days, whatever it takes. Put that time in your diary for the next week… the most important meeting with yourself this year.
C. During that time, do the following

1. Set your Values, Mission, Purpose, Vision on paper
2. Evaluate your business: be able to describe it to a 12 year old!
3. Set your goals for the current calendar year… on paper
4. Set your immediate goals… on paper (your Awesome Special Missions)
5. Evaluate your products and services. Where should the focus be? what needs improving? is the pricing and positioning right?
6. Draw up a bullet point outline of who is responsible for what in the business/ team.
7. Decide on your own KRAs (Key Result Areas), and decide on how to measure your performance in these areas.
8. Time Planning: Draw up a year planner… and put it on the wall. Allocate all the Holidays, Hotel days, MPDs (monthly planning days), SoS (self organisation sessions), Focus Days. This will give you a clear view of the year ahead.
9. Marketing Strategy: what do you do best, who for, and why you? Devise a simple Marketing Engine to attract the right kind of clients for you and what you do best.
10. Brainstorm all your current opportunities, and decide which to pursue, and how by applying goals and an action plan to each.
11. Draw up a Business Pie map… a mindmap of where you can sweep up business in the next month… from all sources
12. Create a Business Upgrade list to turn around all those things, great and small, which need “sorted” in the short term.

This may take two – three days. If you feel you don’t have time during a busy work schedule, do it over a weekend. Whatever happens, just do it.

 

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People Types

Feb 11 2010

People types…
At my seminars I often explain the existence of a number of “People types”. Amongst others, these include:

Gonnas… They are always gonna do this, and gonna do that… in the end it’s too late…and they are a goner.

Excusers… instead of Producing, they spend all their time Excusing. The words “BUT” and “TRY” often appear in their phraseology!

Should’ers… they are always talking about what they Should have done… and often tell others what they should do. Yet when it comes to learning their lesson from the past and the things they should have done, they are blind. They can’t see it… or more likely they refuse to see it. I call them should’ers, because I shudder to think how successful they could be if they had done all the things they shoulda done.

Could’ies… they are always talking about what Could be done… about what others could do… (I call this “chewing the Could”). And they never commit to doing anything… they are always “keeping their options open”. By having lots of COULDs, it feels as if they have loads of opportunity, and enormous potential. This is delusion, because unless action is taken, they may as well not have any potential. 

You may already see a particular category which you fall into (honesty required here). It may be that although you are not blighted by it to the point of being paralysed, you do suffer from small doses of it from time to time. Or you may even recognise that you suffer from the traits of several of these people.

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Debunking a myth

Feb 09 2010

Debunking a myth

“It’s Day Nine of the Olympic Challenge, and Phil is pounding the streets again!”
Said in a Geordie accent, I’m sure that could catch on as the intro to a reality TV show…

The thing about the Olympic Challenge is that it reduces the “should I do this thing/ shouldn’t I do this thing” into a simple decision.

And along the same lines, I am sure many of you will be familiar with the story of the “space pens”, a story which is frequently wheeled out by speakers as an illustration of how people often miss the simple answer to a puzzle.

The story goes like this: the Americans wanted to develop a pen which astronauts could use in space to write in zero gravity/ upside down, etc. So NASA spent x billion dollars (the exact number being a function of the propensity of the speaker to exaggerate) in the research programme, and finally developed such a pen after 10 years of experiments, trial and error, and head-scratching.

Meanwhile the Russians provide all their astronauts with a pencil.

Ok. Great story. But it’s a myth of course.
Pencils are not used in space because they tend to break, and having particles of graphite floating round and contaminating space capsules, and so on, is not good news! So the Space Pen was in fact produced… and an online search will give you the full details.

But the essence of the original story is still important.

Simplicity is often the key. One of our clients calls it “Thinking in binary”, a term which I have adopted…
In business terms, it means being “black and white” about commitments, about whether you are really doing it, or whether you are not doing it.

Often I see people shirk from the truth, shy away from just doing those things that make all the difference in achieving success, hiding behind clichés like “we need to think outside the box first”, and “we are going to do a bit of blue sky wotsname, and then come up with a great plan via our joined up thinking, that can be considered, possibly piloted, perhaps rolled out, maybe tested to destruction, probably destroyed, inevitably rethought via another blue sky, with a touch of cumuli-nimbus chucked in, and then once more piloted, rolled out, yadda, yadda…”

The Olympic Challenge is about doing, and not doing. It’s simple. It’s binary. And i love it!

What one thing in your business do you need to think in binary about?

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Forfeits and Rewards - Snow Joke

Feb 02 2010

Forfeits and Rewards – Snow Joke

So when there’s a blizzard outside, and we have a run to go on, or a power-walk, or a trip to the gym, or whatever, we can get derailed. And the same goes for business related habits. There are always a thousand reasons not to make that call, or work on that report, or any number of pro-active business activities (particularly in the sales and marketing arena… and particularly for small business owners). Learning to overcome these is the power of The Olympic Challenge.
 
Which is where the forfeits and rewards come in…

The idea is to have things to motivate you, that make you just get on with the challenge on days when you would normally have given up. The forfeit is particularly powerful here, and certainly focuses the mind, especially if the prospect of paying the forfeit genuinely does scare the life out of you!

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Some Enchanted Morning

Feb 01 2010

Some Enchanted Morning…

“Regrets are a terminal pain
Discipline is a painful fix
 Habits are a painless cure”

February is a great month to work on your habits. 28 days to form a new success habit is about right, and suits our purposes perfectly.

So, as always I started my Olympic Challenge today - and a number of clients have too-whereby we build 3-6 new habits in a month. That could be either stopping something (some are stopping snacks, chocolate, smoking, etc); starting something (many are doing something new each day in marketing, or fitness, or time effectiveness); or improving something.

I bet I wasn’t alone in starting the morning thinking “I must be MAD to be taking this on again”…

Good luck to everyone who is on this particular journey. Rewards and Forfeits firmly in mind, that’s Day One complete!

Highlight of my day was bounding along on a power-walk this morning with my iPoD on (“Blue Oyster Cult – “Some Enchanted Evening” album).
Cracking… Made even better in the knowledge that there are folk out there who are similarly shrinking waistlines, growing businesses, and having a brilliant month. On purpose.

For those who would like to join the fun, see website for more details of The Olympic Challenge.

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Building a Snooker Break?

Jan 29 2010

I received a business newsletter with the breath-taking idea that businesses should be offering good customer service. In fact it was couched with the enticing headline “Are you offering good customer service?”

OK.
So I read it. And I was under-whelmed by all the talk of having “satisfied customers.”

So, time to learn that lesson.

ALWAYS, always, always, be building a long term snooker break.

 

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Resolutions? Nah!

Jan 28 2010

Resolutions ? Nah!
Let’s have Revolutions instead

What one thing could you do in your business this year that would totally transform the way you work?

A new product?
A new service?
A new experience for the client?
A new approach?
A new market?

Not an evolution, or a resolution… but a Revolution.

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The Year Ahead: Getting off on the right foot

Jan 11 2010

Or is it grey, nondescript, no different to last year… in fact you feel as if you are already back to “business as usual”?
 
You can decide which it is. You can decide how you see the year ahead.
 
And the decision starts with setting your goals. It begins, of course, with taking the time to sit down and do it. No need for me to spell that lesson out, is there?
 
If you haven’t done so… I urge you to invest some time in doing this over the next 24 hours. It really is a must if you want to make this year your big breakthrough!

1. Remember this simple rule: begin with the long term, and go from macro to micro, general to specific. So only set goals for the next 90 days when you’ve got clear long-term vision, clear long-term goals, and clear goals for the current year. Then make these goals for this quarter very specific. And measurable.

2. At the end of the year, and looking back on the year, what will need to have happened to make it a brilliant year?

3. Imagine you are sitting at the end of the year and you have had total success… what sort of things will have happened… in all areas of your life, business, personal, financial, social and community, family… What will your highlights be?

4. Imagine you are in a radio studio being interviewed about how successful you have been this year, what will you be saying?

5. Don’t have too many goals… but make the ones you do have big enough to get excited about!

6. Write them down, clearly, on an Index card and read them every day.

7. Take immediate action. If you decide on a goal to complete a professional exam for example, send for the course material, and register for the exam immediately.

8. Create a “Butterfly moment”. Look for a big step you can take with one of the most exciting goals, and take that step within 24 hours. Even if it makes the butterflies do summersaults in your stomach!

9. Mindchangers. If you are using the Mindchangers techniques, make sure they reflect your goals

10. Regime: make sure you have a regime which supports your goals. Create a weekly and daily “diet” that will allow you the time, the energy and the focus required to achieve them.

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